★★★★★ 5
WHITE MOB JUSTICE
Format: Paperback
More black men were hanged in America in the twentieth century than were hanged during slavery, the author of this book Miss Amy Louise Wood does an excellent job of revealing who and what group of Americans did this whole scale hanging of black men. Many white people who participated and witnessed these hangings were your everyday run of the mill American citizens as stated on page 80-81 "As visual extensions of the lynching itself, photographs could at times assuage crowds that had missed the opportunity to witness and participate in the violence. In 1934, the posse that captured Claude Neal, accused of raping and killing a young white woman named Lola Cannidy, chose to lynch him in the woods outside Marianna, Florida, rather than bringing him to the Cannidy home, where a large crowd had gathered in anticipation of the lynching. When the waiting crowd had discovered that the mob had lynched Neal privately, they were reportedly outraged. The mob finally arrived with Neal's body in tow, and the crowd, which included Cannidy's family, took out their vengeance on the corpse, kicking and shooting it, tearing it apart, and even driving their cars over it. Neal's mutilated, nude body was then hanged on the courthouse lawn in the center of the town, and hundreds of photographs were taken. he next day, as people congregated in the square to see the body, the photographs were sold to those purportedly still incensed that the posse who lynched Neal had denied them the satisfaction and pleasure of witnessing Neal's lynching. The images acted as visual replications of the actual spectacle, offering them vicarious access to the missed thrill of the lynching. The gratification local viewers derived from the images of Neal's lynched body was directly attached to their outrage over Cannidy's rape and murder, their fears of black criminality, and their desires to assert their racial power and superiority in the face of these threats."
Another interesting aspect of these mobs is the role religion played in their actions as stated on pages 67 "The performance of a lynching thus created a symbolic representation of white supremacy-a spectacle of demonic and wicked black men against a united and pure white community. That those images coincided with evangelicals' impassioned exhortations against sin gave lynching sacred force and justification. Indeed, the imprint of Protestant language and tropes on lynching rituals and defenses imbued the violence with divine sanction and made it appear familiar and recognizable to a people immersed in Christian beliefs and values. Mobs could thus conspicuously flout the law and perpetrate what otherwise would be considered aberrant and grotesque acts of sadism while considering themselves to be righteous and moral citizens."
In the twentieth century the hanging of black men was a major festive event for many on looking white people as can be seen in the pictures on page 32 and also on pages 78 and 79, on page 79 you can see a young white man smiling, on pages 95 and 102 there are more pictures of gleeful white spectators, on page 192 there is crowd participation in this picture of a hanging and burning black man I thank this author for writing this very much needed book.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2015
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